Shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry says knowledge is sexist

Did you see Emily Thornberry on Sky News? No? The Press Gazette explains what you missed:

Shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry tells Sky News it is ‘sexist’ to ask her to name the South Korean president

Says Thornberry: “I’ve seen delegations of French and I’ve seen quite a lot of the Norwegians … but not their foreign ministers. We are in the process of arranging for me to go to France and Germany.”

Presenter Dermot Murnaghan asked her who the French foreign minister is. Thornberry didn’t know. So she blathered and attacked the questioner.

“Don’t start pub quizzing me, Dermot. Do you know what, what really upsets me about your attitude to me is that you do this with me. I don’t remember you doing it with anybody else you know.

“Have you done it to David Davis? Have you asked these questions? Do Sky journalists have a go at Boris Johnson on this basis? How about Liam Fox? Do you do pub quizzes with them?”

The Guardian says it matters not that Thornberry is rubbish at pub quizzes:

Is it important that Thornberry should know, off the top of her head, who the French foreign minister is – or, for that matter, the answer to Dermot Murnaghan’s next question, the name of the president of South Korea? I don’t know.

On the one hand, she’ll obviously be given the relevant information before she meets either party, and since she is unlikely to ever be in government anyway, the question is more or less moot.

When Thornberry complained to Murnaghan about the high bar imposed on women in politics, a more compelling example than her own foundering on basic facts would have been that of Angela Eagle, whose leadership challenge stumbled and ultimately faltered under a hail of abuse that included homophobic jibes and actual bricks through window. Invoking this toxic environment as cover for her own lack of preparation was an unsisterly act from Thornberry.

Remember when you were worried about Boris Johnson being Foreign Secretary?